Four of the defendants in the Yameen Rasheed murder case have denied the charges.
Ismail Haisham Rasheed, Hussain Ziyad, Ismail Rasheed, Hassan Shifaz, Mohamed Dhifran and Ahmed Zihan have been charged with first-degree murder while a seventh suspect is charged as an accessory to murder.
Haisham, Zihan, Dhifran and Shifaz denied the charges in Wednesday’s trial. Ismail Rasheed and Hussain Ziyad’s lawyers said that the charges were unclear and did not know what their clients did to murder Yameen.
Wednesday’s hearing was closed off to public, on request of Prosecutor General (PG) Office.
Maldives Police Service (MPS) said that Ismail Rasheed, Haisham and Zihan had actively participated in the murder. MPS also said that Yameen was murder by radicals and the murder was premeditated and meticulously planned.
Yameen Rasheed was found murdered in the stairwell of his residence in the early hours of April 23rd.
